NH State Representative Steven Smith

This August the State of New Hampshire will be seeing large increases in electric rates. Eversource will be increasing their rates by over 50%, and other utilities in the state will have similar increases.

There is a tool Granite Staters can use to shop their electric energy provider. While there is only one utility that can deliver the electricity to you, you have choices when it comes to who supplies you with the electricity you use. There are many companies – competitive energy suppliers- registered to supply energy to your home or business.

Your electric bill consists of two parts- delivery service and the electricity you use, which is your energy supply service. Your electric utility delivers electricity to you and all customers within its defined service area. The energy supply portion of your bill is for the electricity you use in your home or business. You may continue to buy your energy supply from your electric utility, or you may choose to buy your energy supply from a competitive energy supplier.

If you decide to choose a competitive energy supplier, you will still be a customer of your electric utility for the delivery of electricity to your home or business. Your utility company will still be responsible for restoring power if there is an outage. What will be different is that you will now also be a customer of a competitive energy supplier for the actual electricity that you use.

If you are interested in shopping electric rates, the tool can be found here: https://www.energy.nh.gov/engyapps/ceps/shop.aspx

At that site, you can view the current electric rates, and how long that rate is good for, should you choose to lock in that rate with a contract. Remember, it is important that you read all the terms and conditions of the contract carefully, make sure you select a fixed rate plan with a specified length, and understand what happens when the contract ends.

Additionally, six months from now, Eversource and other utilities will reset their rates. There is always a chance they could go down, but there is also the chance they could go higher.

If you have additional questions, the Department of Energy has a Frequently Asked Questions document on their website that covers most questions you may have. https://www.energy.nh.gov/consumers/choosing-energy-supplier/choosing-energy-supplier-frequently-asked-questions

There are growing reports of an imminent doubling of electric production rates. Just what we needed, right? As an example, here is an estimate on Eversource power from the Union Leader:

“A typical home using 600 kilowatt hours of power each month will see a bill increase of approximately $71.39 per month, according to a statement from Eversource, with the price of electricity soaring with the price of the natural gas much of New England uses to generate power.“

https://www.unionleader.com/news/homes/eversource-set-to-double-price-of-electricity-for-nh-customers/article_a54a8d0e-c267-5d61-a7a5-76fd9ebfdd38.html

See if you qualify for assistance – https://www.scshelps.org/energy-assistance/

Politicians are already using this as a lever to pitch pet projects like solar and wind. Yes, we need to diversify the grid. No, that will not help you in the near future. Efforts to incentivize wind and solar have always had a couple of problems. The first is that the investment usually drives up your electric rates. The classic example was a “net metering” proposal that would have allowed micro producers to sell their excess electricity to the grid at retail prices. Every other source is at wholesale. This makes that local power more expensive and raises your rates. Not much of an incentive. The second is pitching specific types of alternate energy sources for political, not engineering, reasons.

We need to be doing two things right now

The state has to find ways to increase energy assistance to NH families right now, before winter. These rate increases are happening. Broad policy discussions about the future landscape of the NH is irrelevant to your immediate crisis. We need to create a state program using surplus funds that is administered alongside LIHEAP. The income guidelines also need to be adjusted upwards due this unprecedented increase in fuel and electricity prices. It really comes down to the simple fact that nobody was able to plan for this, and you need the help now. Help means money.

For the future, we need to stop promoting solar and wind, or any other specific source. We should be listening to engineers and experts tell us what makes sense for specific locations. Cults of interest in specific power sources stall long term policy. If geothermal makes sense for a specific site, that is what should be used. If wind is the most efficient choice, that should be used. Politicians should not be injecting themselves into engineering decisions. We should be finding ways to spur activity without raising rates to accomplish it, and finally all new power sources should be paid for at wholesale rates to keep you from paying more.

~Steve